Pharmacies across the United States were suffering outages as a health technology company reported that it was the target of a cyberattack.
“Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue and our experts are working to address the matter. Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems to prevent further impact,” Change Healthcare told news outlets.
It added that “we believe the issue is specific to Change Healthcare and all other systems across UnitedHealth Group are operational,” while “the disruption is expected to last at least through the day.”
The company said in a series of updates that it noticed the outages on Wednesday morning. The outage appeared to be still ongoing as of around 12 p.m. ET.
The nature of the cybersecurity issue was not disclosed, and other details were not provided. It’s also unclear when the service outage will be resolved.
Several pharmacies this week have said they were unable to access the systems and reported an outage due to the cyberattack, according to reports.
Another Michigan company, Canadian Lakes Pharmacy, wrote that “there is a nationwide outage from some of the largest prescription processors in North America,” while adding: “We CAN receive your RX but MOST insurance plans we cannot bill to your insurance company. If you can wait a day or so to pick up your RX that would be great. If you need it today we can do our best to accommodate individual needs.”
Another firm, Athenahealth, said it was informed of the issue by Change and the “problem is being actively worked on by Change Healthcare, and athenaEDITM is monitoring the issue closely,” according to reports. It warned that customers might see that their transactions showing up with a “no response” status.
It added that the “estimated date for resolving this issue will be tomorrow or later. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates on our progress.”
Other Outages
Notably, a significant number of AT&T users across the United States on Thursday morning reported service outages, leaving them unable to send texts, make phone calls, or use their cellular data. A subsidiary, Cricket Wireless, also suffered outages.Due to the disruption, a number of law enforcement, government, and emergency services said that AT&T customers couldn’t call 911, drawing a response from state and federal officials.
By mid-day, however, AT&T said it had restored access to about 75 percent of customers. The company has not disclosed why the service outage occurred.